quotation-icon.jpgWhen we (a young white family) moved to Clinton Hill in the early 1990s, within days we’d been welcomed by our (black) neighbors, invited to barbecues, spent time talking on stoops and watching each other’s children play on the sidewalk, etc. When I moved to Park Slope, I found that the mostly white families mostly keep to themselves. To this day, I’m on a friendly “hi, how are you?” basis with my black neighbors on my North Slope block whereas the white neighbors seem to think I’m crazy if I say hello to them on the sidewalk! Talk about cultural differences.
— by Park Sloper in Do Generalizations About Harlem Hold for Brooklyn Nabes?


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  1. Black versus white anal retentiveness differential stereotype? Check.

    Old-timer Brooklyn versus newcomer stereotype? Check.

    Manhattan versus Brooklyn stereotype? Check.

    Yuppie versus bohemian stereotype? Check.

    New money versus old money? Check.

    Park Slope bashing? Check.

    Thanks for playing.

    “When I first moved to Park Slope 58 years ago, back when I was a friendly happy-go-lucky black person, we all made apple pie together. Now these new money hedge fund snobs from Manhattan have ruined everything.”

  2. Feh. There’s no white people hostility like old Greenpoint Pole white people hostility. Forget ‘hello’; you’re lucky if they don’t talk about what an ass you are to each other in Polish right in front of you.

  3. MY USER NAME HAS BEEN HIJACKED

    I did not post what you put up as “quote of the day”, Brownstoner.

    Please note the space between “traditional” and “mod” used in the user name for the quote you posted.

  4. dittoburg — my apologies for misinterpreting.

    Your comment sounded to me like “these new people are too busy making money to be friendly”, but I can see you meant something more sympathetic.

  5. Northsloperenter – I have no idea how you managed to turn my comment into some sort of wealth bragging.

    The point wasn’t the amount of salary earned, the point was that in order to earn the salary to pay the mortgage to buy a brownstone in Park Slope, you generally need to be putting in very long hours, and the idea that you’ll be able to come home and sit on the stoop and have a beer after work is just funny. For many, leaving work at 5 or 5.30pm feels like a half day. Sure some can pull in big bucks and have reasonable hours, but most have to stay put at work.

  6. “What time of day do you think people earning $500K get home?”

    And you wonder why your neighbors are a little shy about getting to know you better?

    No one likes being looked at as a bag of money — esp. those of us who sure as heck aren’t.

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